A valve battery of the above described type is known from Federal Republic of Germany DE 39 17 242 A, corresponding to European Patent No. 0,391,269, which are expressly incorporated herein by reference. The known valve system, however, uses base plates which contain only on-off valves, those which have only two different operative configurations. Such valve batteries have a small structural size and weight, and support a high rate of flow. Further, these on-off or regulating valves assure short switching times. The installation of individually controllable directional (on-off) valves required the development of miniature solenoid valves from which unusually high flow rates are required. Such valve batteries are permitting of a simple and rapid application to existing pressure-fluid systems and to the control, for instance, of grippers, cylinders, rotary drives, handling devices, and the like.
The use of such valve batteries as on-off valves, also known as directional valves is, however, not sufficient in certain cases for the necessary direction or control processes. Thus, the known solution entirely lacks control functions.